The Real Me, At Least Partially

I changed my profile name. I'm feeling a bit more comfortable blogging and thought that I might as well use my real first name. So, ta da. I figure that when I get over the whole bitterness and sarcasm thing, I'll be ready to use my last name too. That might take a while.

I spent a lot of time last week listening to an on-line conference for National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week. I came across the conference by chance and listened to the first session because the timing worked with my schedule. It got me hooked because it's not often that there's a conference that's actually easy for someone like me. Having archived sessions made it possible to listen for a while, pause, move around for a while, listen some more, and so on. I didn't listen to everything because some sessions didn't apply but most of the speakers I heard were interesting and helpful. The sessions are archived at www.invisibleillnessconference.com.

After thinking about what I heard at the conference, I realized that I don't often admit to myself that I have a chronic illness. Which is strange considering I spend so much time, effort, energy and money dealing with my fibromyalgia. What's even stranger is that I've spent the last ten or so years dealing with the frustration of trying live like I used to before I got sick and then being resentful because I can't. I'm trying to figure out what denial is getting me and why I'm afraid of going to a place of acceptance. Sigh.

I don't think that my current treatment plan is part of the denial. I think that staying up too late some nights and drinking too much coffee some days and eating too much sugar at times and not doing yoga ever are part of the denial. There's a whiny four-year-old in me screaming "it's not fair". That's denial.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this new insight. Not dealing with it sounds really good while working through the issue sounds far too much like healthy work, acceptance, a sort of yoga for the mind. Now that it's in the open, it'll come up again. The good news is that the conference gave me some new tools to deal with it.